Abbott #1 from BOOM! Studios -
Detroit, 1972 - a city on the edge. And no one can wire-walk like the city's most diligent, hard-nosed, and controversial reporter, Elena Abbott. She moves like silk, smells like Heaven, cigarettes, and brandy, and is as tough as nails with a nose for news. From illegal drugs, to government corruption, to police brutality, Abbott is known to be out for only one thing: the truth. When a police horse is horribly dismembered, the police want ot blame it on black radicals in the city; however, Aboott is not convinced. Not at all. The next corpse the cops find is so hatefully destroyed, it leaves even the world-weary Abbott more than shaken up. These murders look familiar. Too familiar...Reminding her of a lost love, a murder unsolved, a monstruous, supernatural killer...Stirring up a rage she's never been able to shake. No one believed her all those years ago, but this time, Elena Abbott will not stop until she knows the truth, and finds justice...Even if it kills her.
Saladin Ahmed pens this atmospheric supernatural, mystery-crime thriller that's just as cool and slick as you please. But it's even more than that - this comic is a sublime mash-up of so many genres, it like a smorgasbord of genre-bending goodness! Start with a seemingly Friday Foster-inspired protagonist in Detroit in 1972, throw in some blaxploitation elements, a heinous killer - and then make that killer possibly/probably supernatural, and you've got a blaxploitation/crime-mystery/horror comic that has really got some legs! The protagonist, Abbott is calm, cool, collected, smart, sexy, sassy, and brave. She's got a righteous bent that endeared her to me from the first page - she's all about the truth, and she's not about to hold that back for anyone, or anything, even if it costs her everything. And one gets the sense that it has cost her everything before. I love a righteous protagonist. Abbott has got the world against her - a corrupt force of cops, newspaper owners who are racist and sexist, and a supernatural killer that wants to cook her goose. She's got it rough, but she's got a stellar supporting cast that rounds out the book nicely, filling out Abbott's personality nicely as she interacts with each one. From her put-upon, high-strung, Armenian editor who's always trying to look out for her, standing between Abbott and the owners who want her gone, to the owner of the local diner who's always got his ear to the ground, and who's got a young son with the full-blown hots for Abbott, to Abbott's ex-husband, a tougher-than-leather, honest cop who's got to keep one eye on the streets, and one on the partly corrupt and racist force that's supposed to have his back. This book is just full of great characters, and atmosphere wound tightly into Saladin Ahmed's engrossing plot. Sami Kivelä, previously unknown to me, rocks the pencils out perfectly for the story. His art has got a laid back feel, yet it's very precise and quirky - a bit like jazz music. I simply cannot wait to see where this story goes. Abbott is defintely headed out of The Motor City and straight to my pull list.
RATING: 10 out of 10.
You know what? How about I leave you a little taste of the PERFECT Pam Grier as Friday Foster?
Now, I KNOW you can dig that.
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